TechCrunch’s Arrington to start new personal blog

Surprising no one, TechCrunch founder and former editor-in-chief Michael Arrington announced that he’s planning to start a new personal blog within the next few days, according to a Twitter post from last night.

Arrington, who was dramatically ousted from TechCrunch after announcing a new venture fund, will join the ranks of well-known venture capitalists like Fred Wilson and Paul Graham who also run their own personal blogs.

Since such blogs aren’t journalistic enterprises, there should be fewer complaints about conflicts of interest when Arrington writes about companies that he’s also investing in. There’s still the potential for SEC regulators to find personal blogs from VCs problematic though, especially as they gain a huge following (as Arrington’s inevitably will).

Arrington followed up his initial tweet by saying, “network effects beat IP every time.”

TechCrunch wrapped up its Disrupt conference last night with the non-dating Facebook app Shaker taking the top spot. That’s caused some controversy, as the Guardian points out, since Arrington’s CrunchFund is an investor in Shaker. And even though new TechCrunch chief Erick Schonfeld tried to downplay Arrington’s involvement in selecting startups as finalists, Arrington made it very clear in a comment that he’d had “significant input” in the list of finalists.